Gotabaya calls emergency after nationwide strike

Colombo, May 6: Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa Friday declared a state of emergency for the second time in five weeks, giving security forces sweeping powers as a nationwide strike demanding his resignation brought the country to standstill.

A spokesman for the president said he invoked the tough laws to “ensure public order” after shops closed and public transport was halted Friday by unions blaming him for the unprecedented economic crisis, which has ignited weeks of unrest.

Months of blackouts and acute shortages of food, fuel and pharmaceuticals have seen widespread suffering across the island nation. Public anger has sparked sustained protests demanding the government step down over its mismanagement of the crisis, Sri Lanka’s worst since independence in 1948. Millions of workers stayed off the job on Friday in a strike organised by the country’s trade union movement, with all but one scheduled train service cancelled.

The emergency gives sweeping powers to security forces to arrest and detain suspects for long periods without judicial supervision. It also allows the deployment of troops to maintain law and order in addition to police.

“The President used his executive powers to invoke emergency regulations to ensure the maintenance of essential services and public order,” the spokesman said.

He said the laws will go into effect from midnight Friday. Beleaguered Rajapaksa had declared an earlier state of emergency

on April 1, a day after thousands of protesters attempted to storm his private home in the capital.

That emergency was allowed to lapse on April 14. But protests have escalated since then. The new emergency declaration came as thousands of demonstrators remained outside Rajapaksa’s seafront office, where they have been protesting since April 9, and smaller groups tried to storm homes of other key government politicians.